News from me

It’s been a while since I last wrote a post. My apologies to regular visitors. It has indeed been a busy month, in a weird kind of way in some respects. Just to recap:

– We’ve had the oddest start of academic year ever with a string of decisions taken by management without any consultation whatsoever with us academics. One thing they need to learn up there is that reforms cannot be properly implemented without planning, consultation, explanation and, more importantly, you need to obtain the collaboration of most actors/stakeholders. In fact, change management encompasses internal marketing. Sell the damn thing to your internal audience, seduce them, persuade them it’s the right way to go! And also, obtain their feedback to make adjustments that will enhance the chance of success because at the end of the day, they are the agents who will implement everything. I wonder if they have at least realised that up there…

– As for me, I have been able to submit my paper on newspapers in Mauritius to the conference on the Future of Journalism which was organised on Wednesday and Thursday at the University of Cardiff. I was not able to attend but my paper was nonetheless accepted and presented in absentia. And that’s not all, I have to write up another paper for a conference and my deadline for submission is fast approaching (only 10 days left Oh My God!). So, I might again disappear for the next two weeks…

– As far as lecturing is concerned, I have also been revamping/upgrading a lot of my modules (Introduction to Media and Communication, Aspects of Film Theory and New Forms of Media). So. it has been a frenzy of reading, synthesising and preparation of material for lectures…

– On a personal note, those of you who also read Avi’s blog know that we’ve had a string of things to celebrate and events to organise, starting with my birthday (I’m getting old, snif!), going on with Anya’s and Kyan’s birthdays, then lastly our 13th anniversary as a couple. Next will be Avi’s birthday in 11 days. 25th August to 25th September is a birthdays-packed period for the Meetoos 😉

That’s it for the roundup. Ah no, I also forget that I was affected by a very bad throat infection (‘infection des voies aériennes’, said our doctor who gave us an interesting and lengthy lecture about viruses and pandemics) two weeks ago and still suffer from its after-effects. Which did not prevent me from getting embarked on a mountain-climbing expedition on the Black River Peak with Avi and his colleagues (Picture above was taken on top of the mountain;-))